Back in the horse and buggy days the economy was locally controlled. There was no need to commute to the city because all needs were met locally. People were employed by the local bakery and the local dairy and many items were manufactured locally. The items that weren’t came by train or wagon before that. UPS ( jokingly) delivered once a week so people made do and waited.
We have been overcome by the luxury of being able to remove ourselves from one community and work in another.
That luxury has a tremendous cost. Not just the fuel we consume, and the cars we drive, but also the demise of the small town local economy that knew how to survive without government aid and unemployment benefits and paychecks written in the next county.
I realize we can never go back to those days willingly.
But people need a refresher course in self- sufficiency.
I feel sorry for the people in the big cities who have no recourse for basic survival if the SHTF.
THe only way to realize increased benefits of economies of scale is to build bigger factories with larger distribution areas. And also bigger farms and bigger population centers. There’s no way around increased shipping distances. This can still be done with animal power...up to a point. But I’d say we left that point sometime around WW2.
I was actually thinking about how to reduce the reliance on motorized vehicles in a modern economy after posting on the subject. Immediately, one thinks about NYC where a good portion of the population have never even had a driver’s license. In large modern airports they have those electric sidewalks that are basically conveyor belts for people to walk on. NYC could conceivably develop a sturdy outdoor variant of that for their sidewalks to lessen the need for taxicabs and subways.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EdK2y3lphmE
Add something like this to motorized sidewalks in a NYC-like environment, and a human can go a long long way with no vehicles and very little physical effort. A one hour walk to work everyday could be effortless and enjoyable.